Hope & Truth Ministry
Be hope, be love, live with truth.
For the wondering, the doubting, the hurting, and the hopeful. For people without a congregation, and for people who have found theirs but want another voice on the road. You are welcome here.
From the lectionary
Recent reflections
Sermons and reflections in keeping with the Revised Common Lectionary. New writing arrives most weeks.
July 4, 2026
All Who Are Weary - Matthew 11 - Proper 9A
Preached on the weekend of the United States' 250th birthday, this sermon takes up Jesus's invitation to "all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens" (Matthew 11:11-30), reading it alongside Romans 7:15-25 and Psalm 145 to name both the visible and hidden burdens people carry — caregiving, labor, trauma, addiction, and the internal "war with the self." Drawing candidly on his own experience with addiction and with coming to terms with being queer in a conservative religious family, Tony E Hansen challenges the toxic models of masculinity and religion that shame the inner self, insisting with the Psalmist that God is gracious, merciful, and "good to all" without exception. The call is to end the internal violence, receive the rest Christ offers, and become peacemakers and merciful ones for one another.
June 20, 2026
Powerless Fear - Matthew 10 - Proper 7A
Drawing on Hagar and Ishmael cast into the wilderness (Genesis 21) and Jesus’s call to take up the cross (Matthew 10:24-39), this sermon explores how chosen fear divides, harms, and excludes — and how God consistently shows up for all the people including the cast-out and the marginalized. Leans upon the theology of James H. Cone, the cross is not defined as a symbol for a select few, but as the instrument of all people including: the oppressed, the coerced, and the marginalized. Where we can lay our struggles and find liberation. Disciples are called to pivot from chosen fear toward embodied welcome and love.
June 12, 2026 · Proper 6 Year A
Your Mission - Matthew 9 - Proper 6 Year A
Preached on Pride weekend in Des Moines, this sermon takes Jesus's harvest charge (Matthew 9:35–10:8) as a call to seek out and tend those long ignored, excluded, or harmed by broken systems — the queer community, the poor, the marginalized, and all deemed 'unclean' by those in power. Against an individualism that rewards self-sufficiency and punishes vulnerability, Jesus sends disciples out without purse or status, simply to be present, to heal without expectations. The mission is one of radical hospitality and love: finding God in the faces of those the world has cast aside or forgotten.